What are Spiritual Exercises?
SOME DAYS OF RETREAT AND SILENCE, TO ELIMINATE DISORDERED PASSIONS AND LIVE ACCORDING TO GOD'S WILL
"How walking, walking, and running are bodily exercises, so it is called Spiritual Exercise every way to examine consciousness, meditate, pray vocally and mentally, and any other spiritual operation in order to arrange the soul to remove from itself all disordered inclinations and, once removed, to find God's will regarding one's life." (Annotation No.1)
This is how St. Ignatius of Loyola, creator of Spiritual Exercises, described this healthy practice. We make them to imitate Jesus, who spent forty days in the desert. In this way we will be able to overcome ourselves and order our lives according to the design that God has thought for us.
The Spiritual Exercises consist of a few days of retreat, in which a preacher exhibits several topics to ponder (such as the life of Jesus, his Passion, Paradise and Hell ...) divided into four parts. During these days of silence and prayer, it is possible to confess and receive a spiritual direction.
Why do the Exercises?
SILENCE | MEDITATION | PRAYER
We live in a world that constantly oppresses us with work, activity, images, sounds, messages... do we really find time to stop and think about where we're going, or what direction have we taken? Exercises are a good way to detach ourselves from everyday life; they give us time to think for the most important purpose of all, that is, the nourishment of our souls and the conformity of our lives to God's will.
Also, if someone thinks they are being called to the priesthood or religious life, Spiritual Exercises are an excellent method of discernment.
Why do Exercises Online?
Ignatius Spiritual Exercises are normally carried out for a period of 30 days. But St. Ignatius himself in Annotation No.19 of the Book of Exercises offers various adaptations, which were already realised when the Saint was alive, for this they can be done in a reduced version of 10, 8, 5 or 3 days.
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Without letting it be said that the best thing is to do the Spiritual Exercises in retreat and in silence, we are convinced that we do well to adapt them to the modern world and also facilitate them for the internet for all people who can not access them in another way.
A decisive threshold that we must venture to go: "Like the new frontiers of other eras, this (cyberspace) is a mixture of dangers and promises, not without that sense of adventure that has characterized other great periods of change. For the Church, the new world of cyberspace urges the great adventure to use its potential to announce the Gospel message. This challenge is the essence of the meaning that, at the beginning of the millennium, line the following of Christ and his mandate "take the sea": Duc in altum! (Lc 5, 4)". (24.01.2002)
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